So we are told that the government is taking domestic violence seriously. Under plans announced at the beginning of the week, men convicted of beating their partners are to be placed on a national register - modelled on the onefor sex offenders - enabling police to track their movements and warn new partners of their past. Those on the register would be forced to inform local police when they moved home, and the list would also be made available to the NHS and social services.

Any move to formalise domestic violence as a major and actionable offence is of course to be welcomed. Placing it on a par with what is perceived as the most abhorrent offence of our age, paedophilia, is certainly significant, and those who formulated the proposal believe that it will affect public opinion dramatically. It would be even more significant if it heralded a much-needed shift in focus away from the current disproportionate emphasis on street crime, which obscures the fact that 68% of violent crime involves a person known to the victim.

But even before it has begun, this register is too little, too late. In the current context of sentencing for domestic assaults, how effective a deterrent can it hope to be? Although every week in England and Wales two women are murdered by a current or former partner, it is estimated that only one in five incidents of domestic violence is ever reported. Fewer still lead to prosecution, and only a handful of those result in a custodial sentence of six months or more, the qualifying requirement for inclusion on the register.

In practice, the register will only include a minority of the most violent offenders and, as one refuge worker put it, those stupid enough to get caught. Agencies dealing with victims of domestic abuse have already suggested that the register would be more effective were it to take into account civil proceedings: they estimate that double the number who go through the criminal courts will use the Family Law Act to obtain non-molestation or residence orders, which they find a less stressful and more effective way of dealing with their situation. But the current proposals for what is necessary for registration appear set to be as unreflective of the situation on the ground as possible.

According to civil libertarians, the idea that punishment meted out by the courts is not always sufficient sets a dangerous precedent. In what other cases would we be willing to deny individuals their right to a clean slate, effectively extending their punishment indefinitely? These groups have expressed concerns that registers for everything from burglary to shoplifting may follow. But tracking by Scotland Yard's hate crimes unit has found that domestically violent men have one of the highest recidivism rates of any offenders, and supporters of the scheme argue that we have a duty to protect future victims.

Registration, however, brings its own difficulties. Will it, as has happened with the sexual offences register, feed the notion that domestic offenders are all of a particular type, diverting attention from the less palatable truth that violence can happen in any home, on any street, regardless of race, class or education?

Registration also suggests that domestically violent men cannot change their behaviour. Research by the Home Office would appear to support this. But many academics question these results, arguing that the sample used - men mandated to attend therapy by the probation service, arguably the most violent and intractable individuals - was too selective. Independent evaluation of domestic violence intervention programmes has found that men can and do change. But the kind of intervention that works takes time, and it doesn't come cheap. There is a danger that the operation of a register will simply divert resources from these already chronically underfunded programmes.

There is also the question of how a register affects day-to-day policing policy. The centrality of a pro-arrest policy has been a regular theme of Home Office guidance on domestic violence in recent years, but in practice it remains extraordinarily patchy across the country. The women's support charity Refuge believes that a concerted arrest and charge strategy would have far more success in preventing domestic abuse than the stigmatisation of a minority of offenders after the fact. We don't need more legal remedy, but rather adequate implementation of the laws that already exist.

Critics argue that a register does not attack domestic violence at its roots, nor does it contribute to our understanding of why it happens in the first place. This is a grossly underresearched and underfunded area. Determinant factors are still only sketchily understood, while resources that provide women with options to leave the relationship or to stay safely remain limited.

Those proposing the register believe that it will help to alter public perceptions of the crime, by shifting the stigma from victims to perpetrators. But is stigmatising the abuser really any better than shaming the abused? There is a growing belief among professionals that the "naming and shaming" of paedophiles simply increases the likelihood of their reoffending by further isolating them from support structures. The sex offenders register has demonstrated the limits of the concept.

Inter-agency tracking is beneficial, but how practicable is it to intervene in an offender's future relationships? Balancing our responsibility towards a potential victim against an individual's right to a private life is a tough call. Better surely to work towards a situation where it does not take on average 35 instances of violence before a victim contacts the police.